I'm sure I've missed some (I'm told there's a scene in an episode of the Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes cartoon series that duplicates it, as well as other scenes within comics. Here's three more lovely homages that aren't comic book covers, but let's add 'em to the lineup:
Marco de Alfonso puts the full-body wrestling slam on the FF! (link broken; sorry)
All those covers, all those homages and parodies and salutes to Jack Kirby's iconic cover of Fantastic Four #1...and we still don't know who the heck tied up Reed.
L: The Best of DC #50 (July 1984), art by Kurt Schaffenberger
M: The Best of DC #62 (July 1985), art by Joe Brozowski and Larry Mahlstedt
R: The Best of DC #69 (February 1986), art by Joe Staton
(Click picture to Oscar-size)
Say, just how do DC choose which stories are collected in their "Best of the Year" digests?
Cover of The Best of DC #71 (April 1986), art by Keith Giffen and Karl Kesel
In lieu of showing you clips from the new The Beatles: Rock Band video game that was announced this week, let's slip into our Yellow Submarines and zip back to the 1960s for some vintage Beatles animation!:
The Beatles "Got to Get You Into My Life" (1967), directed by Jack Stokes and featuring the voices of Lance Percival and Paul Frees Read more about The Beatles cartoon here
Whoa, it's been a busy, busy week, so excuse the image-heavy content. But what better excuse than to wrap up the working week with a visit from those most amazing superheroes of Spain: Los 4 Fantásticos! ¡Ay, caramba!
Panel from What If? v.1 #26 (April 1981), (inhale) idea by Mike W. Barr, Roger McKenzie and Don Perlin script and creative contributions by Roger Stern & John Byrne, breakdowns by Herb Trimpe, finishes and inks by Mike Esposito, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by Michael Higgins (exhale).
Lo! And in those days, did gods walk the earth! Smiting! Fighting! Annihilating! And...loving!
And as Kevin Sorbo would tell us, the most pitching-woo-iest of the ancient gods was the Lion of Olympus, Hercules! (A slight change to the program: the part of Hercules in tonight's post will be played by the mid-nineties metrosexual version of Hercules.) Let us poor mortals now watch the wooing tactics of Mighty Hercules! (ules ules ules ules...)
Panels from Avengers Annual #23 (1994), script by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema, colors by John Kalisz, letters by Susan Crespi
(Click picture to Steve Reeves-size)
Shucks, what with his arm candy of Tori Spelling and Shannon Doherty, us ordinary guys could take a lesson or two in picking up girls from Herc, huh?...And when Herc picks up girls, he picks up girls! (rimshot) But that old Greco-Roman temper is something he has to watch, because as Carrie Bradshaw might remind him in her popular weekly column syndicated in the Olympus Plain Dealer (it's Hera's favorite section of the paper, which always ticks off Zeus because it's on the back of the daily discus game sports section):
Are we all just looking for a Mister Big, a He-Man, holding our for a hero till the edge of night? And what happens when that super man turns into a super-jerk just because you happen to make a joke about the time he murdered his wife and kids? Is that a no-no in today's dating game? Are we all just in love with a hero who's really a zero?
Smooth move, Jerkules.
But that's crazy mulleted Hercules of the nineties, and I'm pretty sure his adventures have been rendered non-A-Canon by the events in Secret Civil Houses of the 198 Dark World War Hercs. For a look at how the real Herc would make the sweet, sweet kissy-ness, you oughta check out this or this or this or this...or you could just make with the clickety-click and check out this Herc, Prince of Passion:
Yes, millennium from now, humanity will have forgotten such mythical heroes as Knight Rider, Squirrel Girl, and Lou Grant, but forever shall we sing the praises of the man who can swoon himself a dozen lady-persons at the drop of a Grecian urn. What's a Grecian urn? About ten drachmas a...oh, I'm not gonna do that joke.
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